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Monday, December 21, 2015

Put Down Your Damn Cell Phones

Jadelin Pikake Felipe, student services specialist at Stanford University's Archaeology Center and formerly director of enrollment management operations at Menlo College summarizes, "What is the point of scheduling a lunch date with a friend when your attention is somewhere in digital la-la land?"

Every day, I see two people having lunch with one another, both glued to
their cellphones, not talking. And I cannot help but think: something
valuable is being lost. Working on a college campus, I see many situations like this. Someone
forgets their cellphone at home and suddenly it seems as if the earth
is crashing down. Cellphones have become the new-age security blankets.I recently took a group of students on a community-building trip to
play mini golf, and they were more preoccupied with taking photos, and
posting them to Instagram, than they were actually able to enjoy playing
the game. Declaring to the world, online, about their fun day at mini
golf trumped engaging in conversation and laughter with those who were
there right beside them. In that moment, I witnessed how cellphones have
changed the in-person human-interaction landscape.We cannot blame these students entirely, as this is their norm. On average, a person checks his or her smartphone150
times per day. Nielsen Media Research has dubbed those born after 1990
and who have lived their adolescent years after the 2000s Generation C,
in large part because of their constant connectivity to all digital
things. Students who are now entering our colleges' and universities'
doors simply don’t know life without cellphones, iPads and laptops. And
cellphones are not all bad. These gadgets help college students easily
keep in touch with families who may be far away and give students access
to campus resources to help navigate the complexities of their new
college life.Yet we all pay a price -- and one that is hard to see, as the damage
usually takes place within people. But that does not mean it is any less
real. As a master’s student at the University of San Francisco, I have
been studying the impact that cellphones have on student engagement. Research has shown
cellphone use changes brain activity, negatively impacts one’s ability
to identify nonverbal cues and our empathy for others, and can increase
risk of depression, anxiety and stress.

And just as concerning, authentic in-person conversations
happen less frequently. So while students today may argue that a
cellphone is just an object, we who work at colleges and universities
can argue otherwise...The center’s webpage
highlights student testimonies on how involvement in the center’s
programs has helped enrich their relationships and their ability to
self-reflect and be engaged. As one student notes, “My digital life is
different now because I have increased my intentionality of making
friendships a priority over spending time online. So I have to be more
efficient with time to have space for meeting a friend for coffee or
spending time in a conversation. It is worth it. I need rich
relationships.”One might argue that it’s too late to try to teach healthy digital
boundaries at the college level and that it should instead be addressed
in elementary and secondary school. I agree this issue should
be dealt with at an earlier age, and I encourage K-12 educators to start
thinking of ways they can teach our youth about it. For now, I
challenge those of us in higher education to take a lead on dealing with
this pervasive issue on our campuses.Read more... Source:Inside Higher Ed

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About Me

Hello, my name is Helge Scherlund and I am the Education Editor and Online Educator of this personal weblog and the founder of eLearning • Computer-Mediated Communication Center.
I have an education in the teaching adults and adult learning from Roskilde University, with Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and Human Resource Development (HRD) as specially studied subjects. I am the author of several articles and publications about the use of decision support tools, e-learning and computer-mediated communication. I am a member of The Danish Mathematical Society (DMF), The Danish Society for Theoretical Statistics (DSTS) and an individual member of the European Mathematical Society (EMS). Note: Comments published here are purely my own and do not reflect those of my current or future employers or other organizations.